Cable Reveals Pfizer Sought Dirt on Nigerian Official

The world’s biggest pharmaceutical company hired
investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the
Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal
action over a controversial drug trial involving children with
meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities,
who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan,
during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis
epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in
1996.

Last year, the company came to a tentative settlement with the
Kano state government which was to cost it $75m.

But the cable suggests that the US drug giant did not want to
pay out to settle the two cases - one civil and one criminal -
brought by the Nigerian federal government.

The cable reports a meeting between Pfizer’s country
manager, Enrico Liggeri, and US officials at the Abuja embassy on 9
April 2009. It states: "According to Liggeri, Pfizer had hired
investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney
general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to
drop the federal cases. He said Pfizer’s investigators were
passing this information to local media."

The cable, classified confidential by economic counsellor Robert
Tansey, continues: "A series of damaging articles detailing
Aondoakaa’s ‘alleged’ corruption ties were
published in February and March. Liggeri contended that Pfizer had
much more damaging information on Aondoakaa and that
Aondoakaa’s cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for
fear of further negative articles."

The release of the Pfizer cable came as:

* The American ambassador to London denounced the leak of
classified US embassy cables from around the world. In
today’s Guardian Louis Susman writes: "This is not
whistleblowing. There is nothing laudable about endangering
innocent people. There is nothing brave about sabotaging the
peaceful relations between nations on which our common security
depends."

* It emerged that Julian Assange had been transferred to the
segregation unit in Wandsworth prison and had distanced WikiLeaks
from cyber attacks on MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and other
organisations.

* Other newly released cables revealed that China is losing
patience with the failure of the Burmese regime to reform, and
disclosed US fears that Europe will cave in to Serbian pressure to
partition Kosovo.

While many thousands fell ill during the Kano epidemic,
Pfizer’s doctors treated 200 children, half with Trovan and
half with the best meningitis drug used in the US at the time,
ceftriaxone. Five children died on Trovan and six on ceftriaxone,
which for the company was a good result. But later it was claimed
Pfizer did not have proper consent from parents to use an
experimental drug and there were questions over the documentation
of the trial. Trovan was licensed for adults in Europe, but later
withdrawn because of fears of liver toxicity.

The cable claims that Liggeri said Pfizer, which maintains the
trial was well-conducted and any deaths were the direct result of
the meningitis itself, was not happy about settling the Kano state
cases, "but had come to the conclusion that the $75m figure was
reasonable because the suits had been ongoing for many years
costing Pfizer more than $15m a year in legal and investigative
fees".

In an earlier meeting on 2 April between two Pfizer lawyers, Joe
Petrosinelli and Atiba Adams, Liggeri, the US ambassador and the
economic section, it had been suggested that Pfizer owed the
favourable outcome of the federal cases to former Nigerian head of
state Yakubu Gowon.

He had interceded on Pfizer’s behalf with the Kano state
governor, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau - who directed that the
state’s settlement demand should be reduced from $150m to
$75m - and with the Nigerian president. "Adams reported that Gowon
met with President Yar’Adua and convinced him to drop the two
federal high court cases against Pfizer," the cable says.

But five days later Liggeri, without the lawyers present,
enlarged on the covert operation against Aondoakaa.

The cable says Liggeri went on to suggest that the lawsuits
against Pfizer "were wholly political in nature".

He alleged that Medecins sans Frontieres, which was in the same
hospital in Kano, "administered Trovan to other children during the
1996 meningitis epidemic and the Nigerian government has taken no
action".

MSF - which was the first to raise concerns about the trial -
vehemently denies this. Jean-Herve Bradol, former president of MSF
France, said: "We have never worked with this family of antibiotic.
We don’t use it for meningitis. That is the reason why we
were shocked to see this trial in the hospital."

There is no suggestion that the attorney general was swayed by
the pressure. However, the dropping of the federal cases provoked
suspicion in Nigeria. Last month, the Nigerian newspaper Next ran a
story headlined, "Aondoakaa’s secret deal with Pfizer".

The terms of the agreement that led to the withdrawal of the
$6bn federal suit in October 2009 against Pfizer "remain unknown
because of the nature of [the] deal brokered by . . . Mike
Aondoakaa", it said. Pfizer and the Nigerian authorities had signed
a confidentiality agreement. "The withdrawal of the case, as well
as the terms of settlement, is a highly guarded secret by the
parties involved in the negotiation," the article said.

Aondoakaa expressed astonishment at the claims in the US cable
when approached by the Guardian. "I’m very surprised to see I
became a subject, which is very shocking to me," he said. "I was
not aware of Pfizer looking into my past. For them to have done
that is a very serious thing. I became a target of a multinational:
you are supposed to have sympathy with me . . . If it is true,
maybe I will take legal action."

In a statement to the Guardian, Pfizer said: "The Trovan cases
brought by both the federal government of Nigeria and Kano state
were resolved in 2009 by mutual agreement. Pfizer negotiated the
settlement with the federal government of Nigeria in good faith and
its conduct in reaching that agreement was proper. Although Pfizer
has not seen any documents from the US embassy in Nigeria regarding
the federal government cases, the statements purportedly contained
in such documents are completely false.

"As previously disclosed in Pfizer’s 10-Q filing in
November 2009, per the agreement with the federal government,
Nigeria dismissed its civil and criminal actions against the
company. Pfizer denied any wrongdoing or liability in connection
with the 1996 study. The company agreed to pay the legal fees and
expenses incurred by the federal government associated with the
Trovan litigation. Pursuant to the settlement, payment was made to
the federal government’s counsel of record in the case, and
there was no payment made to the federal government of Nigeria
itself. As is common practice, the agreement was covered by a
standard confidentiality clause agreed to by both parties."